Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Abigail and I were in the van a few days ago, and she told me that when she grows up, she wants to work at Orange Leaf (it’s a frozen yogurt shop where you can put as much froyo as you can fit in your cup, top it with lots of crazy candy toppings, and pay by the ounce – pretty much heaven to a four-year-old).

“What job are you going to be, when you grow up?” she asked.

“I’m already grown up, and I already have a job,” I answered.

“What!?” She started to laugh. “You don’t have a JOB.”

“Yes, I do. My job is taking care of you kids. I think it’s a lot of work.”

“That is not a job, Mama. You have to go somewhere and get paid for a job.”

“Well,” I said, “maybe one day I will get paid for being a writer. Can my book be my job?”

She shook her head at me, hardly believing that I needed these details spelled out. “If you want to be a AUTHOR, you gotta make a stand.”

I was not sure how to process this. Does my kid want me to write a book about a hard-hitting social justice topic? Is she telling me to take a stand for something important and honorable?

“What do you mean?”

“You need to get some boards and nail them together and stand there with your book and people give you money. Like when girls sell lemonade!”

Let’s talk toys. The recent epidemic of toy recalls has generated a lot of conversation at our dinner table, at my mommy&me playgroups, and (I’m sure) in millions of other homes. The question that comes up for me is, “What am I going to do about it?”

For starters, I’ve never been a big fan of a lot of the types of toys that are being recalled. Susan Linn, a psychologist who has studied media & marketing’s influence on children, says in her book CONSUMING KIDS: THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF CHILDHOOD:

“Play requires physical and/or mental activity. The impetus for play comes fromwithin children. It is their way of learning about the world. It is inherentlysatisfying in and of itself and requires no goal. Once a goal is more importantthan the activity, that activity is no longer play. In competitive sports, forinstance, once winning becomes more important than the process of playing, thegames or matches cease to be play. The ability to play and be playful is a signof health.

Once we acknowledge the importance of play, it makes sense thattoys—the things children play with[sic]—are also of critical importance. There’ssome unintentional irony in the face that so many toys today are labeled‘educational’. The best toys are inherently educational in that they serve astools for helping children actively explore, understand, and/or gain masteryover the world. Even if they have multiple parts, they are simple enough to beput to many different uses, and to become different things in a child’simagination.

The recent proliferation of computer chips that enable toys tomove or make sounds on their own renders children passive observers rather thanactive participants in play. Because children are attracted to glitz and becausethese are the toys being marketed to them, they may desperately want stuffedanimals or dolls or action figures that walk and talk independently, or toysthat whiz, bang, whistle, and hoot at the press of a button. However, becausethey discourage active, imaginative play, toys that do only one thing soonbecome boring; children use them a few times and then are ready for a new toythat does something else.”

I’ve written about this before. When we flood our kids’ playrooms with toys that do all the playing, all the exploring, all the thinking for them, we are taking away the most precious task of childhood. We’re not doing our kids any favors when we buy the plastic crap that sings and dances and shimmies and laughs. That’s not what kids are wired to need, anyway – they need real, live, caring adults to sing with them, dance with them, do some silly shimmies, and laugh and cry with them. But now I’m getting off track. When it comes to toys, kids have legitimate needs, too.

For kids in Jonas’ age group, the needs for play are in a few basic categories:–sensory/exploratory play–dramatic/pretend play–social/interactive play

Sensory and exploratory play is how toddlers learn about the world. Kids experiment with textures, smells, sights, and tastes all day long. Toys like sand & water tables, play-dough, art supplies, & bath toys fall into this category.

Dramatic and pretend play are just beginning to emerge in young toddlers. Children start out by imitating the things and people they see every day. They play at families, household tasks, driving in the car, and more. For this type of play, kids need things like vehicles, blocks, pretend food and dishes and appliances, dress-up clothes, dolls and baby gear, cleaning supplies, and all sorts of odds and ends that can be imagined into props.

Social and interactive play happens in all sorts of ways, and often without toys. When toddlers play peekaboo, chase, and tickle, they are learning about social exchanges. Still, there are toys that help facilitate this kind of play. Outdoor toys like hula hoops, riding toys, and parachutes are great. So are indoor things like balls and books. Anything that gets kids playing with (and talking to, if applicable) other children or grownups fits in here.

:::

Kids are ready and willing to plunge into play. All they need is the toys and materials that will support, and not hinder, their natural inclination. Which brings me back to my opening question. We’re planning to avoid made-in-China toys this year. There are dozens of great companies that are making toys in the US – and dozens more that are importing toys from other, more responsible nations. When it comes down to it, I’d rather spend my money on one, quality made, safe-for-my-son, creativity-fostering, appropriate-play-nurturing toy… than on a half-dozen quickly made, unsafe-or-at-least-suspicious, shiny plastic toys. I hope you’ll think about doing the same for your kids.

I’m working on some follow-ups to this post – some links to companies that offer quality products; more information from a few of the books I’ve been reading about children’s development, toys and playtime, and a few other hot parenting topics; and our Christmas lists. (;-D) Comments are open for debate, questions, and comments…. so fire away!

Like the conductor’s baton, rapping his stand and calling all to attentionI hear the tiny “tink tink tink” and my heart perks upalong with the coffee.

This sizzle and spurt makes me happyin a way I can hardly describe.

I’m drinking decafso it’s not about a joltof chemicals to wake me up and make me move.

Fixing a cupI feel connectedto my mom – warm hands circling a cup, then cupping a child’s faceto my grandmother – that pink-on-the-inside mug we all want the mostto my dad – enormous mugs that lived in the motorpool for days without washingto millions of parents all over the world who are starting their days

just like me.Black? Light? Light & sweet?

I nod to them, over my steaming mug. First sip in the silenceof a dark and quiet house.It’s not about caffeine, I decide.It’s about the sisterhood of motherhood.

Oprah revisited the ultimate mommy question on her show yesterday. “My Baby or My Job: Why Elizabeth Vargas Stepped Down.” I don’t think I’ve blogged about this here before (though I’ll look through my archives and check), so I want to do so now. I’ll give you a rundown of the show – especially a few of the comments that really struck a chord with me – and then share my thoughts on the subject.

I came into the show late – about the last half hour. Apparently in the first part of the show, Oprah interviewed Elizabeth Vargas about her choice to stay home with her newborn baby instead of staying in her high-profile job as anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight.

The part I saw dealt with the members of a discussion panel – if you visit the link above, it starts on screen “6 of 13.” I don’t have a transcript of the show, so I’ll just do my best from the notes I scribbled as I watched and the recap provided on the Oprah Show website.

First of all, my biases. My son was born in February of 2006, and I returned to work for nine weeks in March-May of 2006. I have been a stay-at-home mom for the fifteen months since then. Now then, on to the show.

Barbara, a working mother of three, said that

“If you don’t have something that is your own, then your kids become everything. And you need to make that separation about what you’re doing for your kids and what you’re doing for yourself.”

I can see her point, to a certain extent. It’s not healthy to sublimate your every thought, emotion, and need within the roles of housewife and mother. As an adult woman, you need to have time and space for yourself – time to affirm your intellect, to nourish your spirituality, to nurture your emotional self. However, I disagree that the only way to maintain your sense of self is to pursue employment outside the home. Women who stay home make a powerful choice to do something “for their kids” and they often make sacrifices which make their choice possible. They also make the choice to find necessary “separation” in other avenues. You can enjoy adult conversation at church – a great, stimulating debate at a book group – a peaceful meditation during naptime – a “break” from the day to day doldrums at the spa – a creative outlet in a hobby, a class, or a blog (:-). For women who stay-at-home because they BELIEVE they are making the best choice for their children, Barbara’s comment rings empty and hollow – it’s a false argument in favor of working.

She went on to say that it’s

“more important… that you’re around when your kids are teenagers. You know, anybody can read your kid a book or cuddle your kid.”

One stay-at-home mom took exception to her remarks.

“I think that sometimes using phrases like that minimizes what being a stay-at-home mom is. It’s not just about reading a book or wiping their nose. It’s engendering in them a sense of independence and a quest for learning that is shaped by your values.”

I’m so glad that Whitney spoke up. I was saying almost the exact same thing to my TV screen. Even though it doesn’t take anything special to qualify someone to read a book to a child, or to give that child a hug, it also doesn’t MEAN anything special when a stranger does those things. When a mother reads with her child, she communicates so many things: that our family values books and learning, that you are important enough for me to stop what I’m doing and read with you, that I like asking you questions and hearing your answers. When a mother hugs her child, she brings so much caring, so much history, so much of a bond to that hug. The argument from the working-mom camp that the things their daycare providers do are trivial and simple and “no big deal” to farm out… that argument drives me crazy. Even though the tedium of day-to-day infant and toddler and preschooler care gets old and frustrating sometimes – it is just DIFFERENT to be the mommy who changes that diaper, or wipes that nose, or sings that song, or creates that art project. The intent and the care that a mother brings to the same situation cannot be hired.

Dr. Robin Smith, Oprah’s go-to psychologist these days, said that Americans have too much of an either/or dichotomy mindset. “We lose the wisdom of both worlds,” she said, and “the goal isn’t to have it all… it’s to be attuned with yourself and your children. Attuned means ‘I’m connected.'”

She pointed out that a stay-at-home mom who is disconnected, exhausted, and disengaged really isn’t PRESENT with her children – and a working mom who makes a point to attend her kids’ functions and games but then focuses on her Blackberry instead isn’t really there, either.

Dr. Robin gets on my nerves. (Just in the interest of full disclosure, y’all.) I have to give her some credit for this one. I’m a member of a parenting forum that seems to be full of moms who come down on others with a judgemental, holier-than-thou, best-darn-stay-at-home-mom on the block attitude… and yet these self-proclaimed SuperMoms have racked up 10,000 posts in under 3 years. Where are their SuperKids while they’re online all day long?

Toward the end of the show, a lovely young mom shared her change of plans. Melissa had a rough pregnancy and now believes her daughter may be her only child. When she visited the daycare they had chosen, and a worker asked her to leave a disposable camera so that pictures could be taken of the “moments she would miss,” it put her in tears. She said that she feels badly for her husband, since they had a plan in place before the baby was born – but now that her little girl is here, she can’t leave her in daycare. Her current plan is to stay home for one year and then re-evaluate how it’s working.

Then she wondered aloud,

“But will it be harder in a year when she’s crying ‘Mommy’ and holding on to me? {paraphrase}”

Barbara, our working mom of 3, chimed in.

“Yes, they do that. When I dropped off my 3 year old it was like Sophie’s Choice every day – I’ll be good, I’ll never do anything wrong ever again, just don’t drop me off! – and I would hide out and wait to see if he was okay. It’s just like they say – in five minutes they’re fine and playing. {paraphrase}”

Dr. Robin jumped in again. She said it was natural to feel terrible about dropping your children off at daycare.

“You want them not to ache – but the task of motherhood is to teach them what to do when they ache. How to self-soothe, whether you are there at home or away at work. {paraphrase}”

See, I don’t agree with this one, Doc R. I don’t believe that my primary task as a mother is to teach my son how to soothe himself. As an adult, I don’t soothe myself! When I am hurting, I have learned how to reach out. I go to my husband, to God, to a dear friend, to an expert. I’ve learned where to turn for help. See, in my experience, when I try to solve all my problems and pains by myself, things get worse. I want to teach Jonas to be independent – in his thinking, his decision-making – but I also want to teach Jonas to be interdependent. God made us to be part of a bigger social structure – we are born into families, and we grow up and create our own families. We join church families and we participate in our local and global communities. This dogged insistence on SELF – self-soothing, self-esteem, self-interest – seems to me to be one of our problems in this country. I’d much rather be surrounded by people who care about others and are plugged in to having people care about them.

The show wrapped up with two moms of adult children, who both had regrets about their choices. The stay-at-home mom said that her children didn’t see her as capable of anything other than making dinner and running a house. “What about me now? I want a part of me back.” The working mom seemed near tears when she said, “I missed everything.” She told her kids not do what she did – but her own daughter, who was also in the audience, said that she always felt loved and cared for. She made the decision to return to work when she had her own baby. Dr. Robin had some advice for the working-mom-of-adult-children, too. She told her that rather than tell her daughters NOT to work, she should be helping them on “the journey to find what it means to be a mother to them, not to you. {paraphrase}”

This is another one of my pet peeves. Moral relativism – where it might be right for me, but not be right for you – is one of the most illogical things I encounter among otherwise well-educated and well-intentioned people. If something is right, then it is always right in all situations. Right? And this is why mothers are still engaged in the Mommy Wars – because even when we espouse this notion that “this is right for me but it might not be right for you,” we still believe that what we have chosen is MORE RIGHT. Mothers who work believe that they are doing the right thing – if not the right thing for every child on the planet, then at least the right thing for their personal children or their personal financial situation. Mothers who stay home believe they are doing the right thing, too. Which means that they all believe that mothers making that other choice are wrong.I believe that children deserve a full-time, fully attached, parental caregiver during their formative years. (I won’t get into my views about mothering school-aged children in this post. We’ll save that topic…. maybe I’ll make this a series.) I believe that some mothers are not able to be the full-time caregiver for a variety of reasons…. including mental illness, physical disability, single parenthood, and financial crisis. I believe that most mothers who claim that they “need to work” for the money actually are “choosing to work” for the money. (I personally know women who worked in the public school system and told me their income went for the “extras” like a yearly trip to Disney World and the latest Louis Vuitton handbag for their 13-year-olds.)I believe that staying-at-home is more than being a warm body in the house with a child – more than watching out for accidents – more than feeding, changing, and putting down for naps – more than reading umpteen books and singing umpteen songs – more than attending playgroups and library story hours. I believe in attachment parenting – the “Seven Baby B’s,” as Dr. William & Martha Sears put it in their book, which include bonding with baby at birth; breastfeeding; bedding close to baby; babywearing; belief in baby’s cries (in other words, attributing no ill intent or manipulation to the cries of infants, but rather viewing them as valid communication from real people who are too young to have any other communciation tools); beware of “baby trainers;” and balance. This is a responsive parenting style – the “Baby B’s” help parents get to know and understand their baby, which makes them able to meet their baby’s needs and eventually anticipate those needs. At this stage, we are no longer breastfeeding or cosleeping. We still wear Jonas in slings and carriers, we believe that his crying is a valid way to communicate his feelings, and we stay away from those who proclaim that toddlers should be getting used to Time-Outs and Spankings by now. AP fits our lives. AP is an instinctive way of living within our family. Just as I would never want to be ignored if I broke down in tears of frustration and anger, I choose not to ignore Jonas’ tears. When he wants to go downstairs all by himself, but we tell him “No, wait for Mommy or Daddy,” that’s a big deal to a little person! He may bang the gate, he may start to cry. We don’t “punish” him – no scolding, no smacking his hands. We speak to him gently, we explain what’s happening, we offer hugs and kisses if he wants to accept them. In other words: we treat him like a PERSON. A person who doesn’t have an adult supply of patience yet – or a brain that does “cause & effect” thinking – or the dexterity to accomplish all the tasks he is dreaming of…. but still, a person.Part of the reason I am so passionate about my career as a stay-at-home mom is because I believe it is INFINITELY harder to be an attached parent-and-child when you are separated for many hours of every day. (I didn’t say it’s impossible. Just that it’s a lot harder. I know people who are trying to make it work, and I don’t envy them at all.) So I guess you could say that I choose to be a SAHM because it’s the easiest way to accomplish my parenting goals. I know Jonas so well because we are closely attached. I can usually anticipate his needs, and when I can’t figure out his needs, I can at least put myself in his shoes and decide how I’d like to be treated if the situation were reversed. For me, the two things go hand-in-hand. I’m a stay-at-home parent because I believe that it’s the best -and easiest- way to ensure that Jonas can form a secure attachment to his parent(s). I’m an attached parent because I believe that my child deserves the best start in life – and I believe that forming a secure attachment with a parent puts him on the best path toward intellectual development, psychological well-being, and emotional stability.

My big boy, you are nearly a year and a half old! Today was a big, fun day. We went to our first playgroup in Kentucky, and met a bunch of moms and babies at a water park. You charmed everyone with your new “hiding” routine, where you close your eyes and purse your lips when a stranger talks to you. It’s such a somber expression on a little guy, people can’t help but laugh! It didn’t take you long to warm up, and before I knew it you were eating your lunch and jabbering away at the two little girls at our table. Then we went inside the splash park, and you transformed into the cutest little water beetle I’ve ever seen. You barely hesitated at the sight of big jets of water erupting from the sidewalk – you ran over to the water slide with a seal, balancing a ball on its nose, on top – you splashed and frolicked and stomped. And I think you made friends with every woman in a two-piece suit in the whole place!

I should have known you’d enjoy this place. When Aunt Holly visited us last week, she got you a baby pool and it’s been the highlight of your days.

We are starting to get into the groove in this new place. When you wake up in the morning, we have nursies in Mommy’s big bed. Then we hop down and you R-U-N to the kitchen for breakfast. Usually you point at the pantry and ask, “Bah? bah? bah?” hopefully – you’ll give anything for a cereal bar!

After you eat, and I clean up, we head downstairs to play. You love going up and down the stairs in our new house! The first few days, you couldn’t believe your good fortune at living in a place with all these stairs. I’d see you running to the baby gates, rattling them, and signing “more? more!” and pointing up or down. You haven’t settled on method for going down yet, though – you do a few steps scooting on your bottom (and you say “buh!” when your tush lands, imitating my “Bump!”) and then you turn over on your tummy and crawl backwards down a few steps, and then you hold my hand or the wall or the railing and walk down the last few like a grown-up.

We play downstairs for a while – I really love having all your toys spread out down here, and it’s great that there’s a bathroom downstairs. A few times I’ve been able to take my shower in the morning while you played in the playroom! This is a great setup we’ve got here.

Sometimes we run errands. Now that we’ve joined a playgroup, hopefully we’ll have lots of days with new friends. Sometimes we go outside to play in the backyard, swing on your swingset, or splash in your pool.

We eat lunch, and then you take a nap. You’re such a good eater – I never worry that you aren’t getting enough, or that you’re becoming too picky. You have started to show your preferences, and you eat fewer vegetables now than you did ten months ago. I’m okay with that, though. You love fruit, and you do eat a few veggies still. Hey, your Uncle Jason hardly eats any veggies and he turned out okay! Your naps are usually 2-3 hours long, which is great for Mommy. How else would I get anything done around here?

Our afternoons feel l-o-n-g. I’ve started trying to get out your paper and crayons for you then, and I’m planning to start giving you more art supplies soon. It blows my mind that you are becoming such a full-fledged toddler, and you actually are starting to enjoy having these activities and experiences. It seems like yesterday that you were, as Pam in Florida puts it, my Houseplant That Cries. (You know, you water them and they just sit there…) And now you do so much!

Your personality continues to emerge, and it’s so amazing to see. You are pretty fearless – like today at the water park – though you are starting to be a little shy around new people. I think you just don’t like to feel intruded upon. When people talk to you, make eye contact, and get too close before you’re ready, you get a little upset and do your closed-eye thing. But when people respect your space, and let you check them out for a while before they mob you, you are a friendly, engaging, chattering little social butterfly.

You are so sweet and sensitive – you share EVERYTHING, all the time. Sometimes when you wake up from your naps, you bring Baby and the binky with you to my bed. Then Baby gets the binky, and Lux gets the binky, and Mommy gets the binky. And then you get the binky again, of course, but it’s so nice of you to offer it around. You have even started sharing your nursies!!! It makes me laugh, but I also think it’s a really beautiful thing when you bring your stuffed animals over to me, point them to my chest, and make a little “slurp, slurp” sound. You know that nursies are for comfort and nourishment, and it’s so precious that you want to spread that love around to your little friends.

Communication keeps getting better around here! You have signs for nurse, finished, more, bye-bye, book, ball, cup, & eat; and you have words for Daddy (dada), cat (keekee or keegee), ball (ba), cereal bar (bah-almost the same as your word for ball, but different enough for Mommy to tell the difference), and car (vmm or voom). I know you are continuing to figure all of those things out and your “language explosion” is probably right around the corner.

When Daddy comes home from work, you light up like a Christmas tree! Hopefully this year his schedule will get more predicatable, because I know you love having that time to play with him before bed. So far, in our new house, we’ve had dinners together as a family and Daddy has done your bathtime.

You are going to bed around 7:00 these days, and you are finally sleeping through the night! (Thank you, by the way.) You started that right before our move, and other than a few nights while you had to sleep in the pack & play, it didn’t even seem to bother you or disrupt your new pattern. I think you’re getting around 11-12 hours of sleep at night, which you need to process all the busy work and play you do during the day.

“Busy” is probably the best single word to describe you this month. You make us laugh, you make us cry, you make us proud to be your parents. We love you, and we love this busy journey we’re on with you.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the wonderful women in my life – my moms: Mom, Donna, Trish; my grandmothers: Grandmama, Granny, Nana, Nancy; my aunts: Linda, Alice, Angie, Twila, Audrey, Corinne, Andy; my sister-in-law Missy; my friends: Courtney, Staci, Barbara, Genny, and Holly (who is not a biomom yet, but is a fabulous teachermom to her pack of precious kiddos!). I love you. Thank you for the love and nurture you’ve poured into my life. I could not call myself a mother today, without you.I wrote this many months ago, and it appeared on another website, under a pseudonym, for awhile. I’m sharing it here now because it captures how I feel on this day that celebrates motherhood.

She is three years old, with bright blue eyes and mousy brown ponytails. Her favorite doll has only one blinking eye; her roaring great-uncle from Up North bounced the other one out in a round of boisterous play on his last visit. Her vocabulary is enormous and she takes adults by surprise, but her parents are used to their loquacious daughter and so much of her daylong prattle falls on deaf ears. She loves being asked direct questions, and loves it even more when the asker takes her seriously. “A mommy.” She cuddles the cyclopsian blonde baby close to her heart, pats its matted hair, strokes a finger over its eyeless eyelid. “I want to be a mommy.”

Her hair falls over one eye, and she hastily pushes it back behind her ear. Surrounded by a stack of books, the ones to her left are waiting to be read and the ones to her right have just been finished. They will all be on the right by the time she goes to bed. At seven, she is quiet and bookish and introverted. She loves music and horses and the Old West. Authors have taken her places beyond her own four walls, where her family is the biggest part of her world. She has bigger dreams these days, and her answer has changed. “A vegetarian. And a veterinarian. With a Ph.D. from Harvard.” In what? She has time to figure that out.

It has been a shock, entering public school. After a few rocky months, she has a rhythm to her days now. There is a gaggle of friends waiting for her at lunch, another at church youth group, and there are still her friends with leatherbound spines. She is in Advanced Placement classes, and she has fallen in love. There is a boy, a hulking awkard heap of hormones who gives her messy kisses at the school bus. She writes angsty poetry full of sappy rhymes and hackneyed phrases about loss and misunderstanding and longing and love. But there is also the deep pull of old Southern voices: Faulkner, Williams, Twain. Her answer now is a safe one: “a teacher, maybe English? Or, um, elementary school?” In her heart, though, there is another answer that scares her, so she doesn’t reveal it. “A writer.”

At twenty-one, she isn’t asked the question much anymore. She is a teacher, just like she said she wanted to be, back in high school. Nineteen four-year-olds adore her, filling her mornings with painted pictures and sticky fingers and ferocious hugs. Her name has changed, and he is going to medical school, so one of these days she thinks she might not have to be a teacher. What then? If she asks herself the question, she has a ready answer. “A master’s degree, a doctorate of education…. A college professor.”

Tricky time moves on, and five years go by. Funny how the events of our life bring us back to our beginnings. She looks down into bright blue eyes that mirror her own. She cuddles the baby close to her heart, pats his sweet blonde hair, strokes his face so much like his father’s. She has an answer, now, a final answer. There may be descriptions to add, there may be credentials to list, but they will not be the most important things. When all is said and done, what she wants to be is a mommy.

Welcome!

I'm writing my first novel, mothering three kids, and loving one husband. I blog because I'm too loquacious for my own good. My verbal overflow ends up here. My life story is on top and 11 years of archives are below. If you have a few words to spare, I'd love to hear from you - drop me a comment!